Note: the CSI miniseries event is nearly over...one more chapter after this one!Thanks again for the reviews guys! Take in the notes in my profile regarding the nextbig project I'm alreadyworking on!

Chapter Nineteen – Emotionless Fear

Cathy Hampton was nervous as she sat in the interrogation room in her slipper clad feet and flannel pajamas. Hell, she wasn't nervous; she was downright scared. It was all written in the blank stare, the stone cold expression on her face. It resonated through her body into her nerve shaken hands as she attempted to hold the proffered coffee cup steady. Nick and Warrick watched from the observation room as Brass took a seat across from their suspect.

"You think she'll crack?" Nick asked keeping his gaze straight ahead, his hands planted on his hips.

"Hard to say," his partner shook his head.

So far it had been a slow going process. The woman was being obstinate, anything but cooperative. The detective's questions seemed to be falling on deaf ears, his threats going unheeded.

Quietly, Grissom stepped into the room, joining his CSIs. With a silent nod he let Warrick know things had been taken care of. The body of Molly Harris had been identified, the husband had been cleared.

"Look, lady we've got everything we need to put you away for life. Talking can only help you here," Brass sighed from his seat across the table.

Slowly she lifted her gaze to meet the detective's. There was an eerie calm behind her gaze, an unmistakable void in the depths of her eyes. "I want a lawyer," she offered coldly, her voice unwavering. She lifted the coffee cup to her lips, took a careful sip and returned the cup to the table, all while keeping a cool eye on the detective.

"Fine. That's your right," Brass shrugged standing from his seat. "I'll…uh…just go and talk to your husband while we wait for that attorney of yours to show up. You may wanna give Howard Lawson a call; I hear he's really good. You know the law firm, right? Chandler and Kao? Anyway, your husband, he's probably more willing to talk, right? He seemed a little more vocal anyway," he moved toward the door.

Something had struck a chord with her. For the first time in the hour and a half he'd had her sitting at the table, he finally saw a glimmer of something in her abysmal eyes. There was slight sign of weakness, of vulnerability. It was the open window for which he'd been waiting.

"What?" the detective asked pausing for a moment. "You don't want me talking to him? You think he'll spill the beans? Or, wait; maybe…was it the law firm? They're actually really good," he nodded. "A buddy of mine knows the guy, had a nice long chat with him just yesterday."

Her chin was quivering now, it was a slight tremble, but still, it was noticeable.

"She's cracking," Nick allowed a smile to creep across his face as he slowly made his way to the door. Warrick wasn't far behind him as he exited the observation room and made his way to the interview, leaving Grissom in solitude.

"Look, your husband's in the other room talking to my colleagues now. You want to know what he's telling them? He's telling them everything, and he's saying it was all your idea," Brass was leaning over the table now. "So why'd you do it?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," the woman offered between clenched teeth.

Slowly Brass stood upright, moving toward the two-way mirror. He was perturbed. Leaning against the wall, he nodded a silent greeting as the two CSIs entered the room.

"You remember Nick Stokes, right?" the detective motioned toward the criminalists. "From the crime lab?" They were greeted by another blank stare. "Well, things were kind of hectic at your house earlier. Maybe things are a little blurry."

"Mrs. Hampton," Nick nodded taking a seat in front of her, "this is my partner Warrick Brown."

"It seems the cat's got her tongue," Brass smirked as he crossed his arms across his chest.

"That's okay. She doesn't have to talk, the evidence has already done that for her," Nick shook his head his gaze resting on the female suspect. Carefully, silently he arranged the files he'd brought in with him across the table.

Deliberately he handed a stack of photos to Warrick allowing him to arrange them across the tabletop. He sat back then, watching Warrick strategically place the photos. He was more interested, though, in noting Cathy Hampton's reaction to the grisly photos.

Her reaction, if it could be called that, was minimal. The woman was a stone wall of emotions.

Photos depicting the murder of Ted Goggle, the gun hanging in the man's limp grip, the bullet wedged in the garage wall filled the woman's eyes. Then there were photos taken from her home, the bloody clothes, the child's bedroom, the toys left cluttered on the floor.

Nick cast a sidelong glance at the detective, who stood equally captivated by the woman as she took in the photos. He started slowly as Warrick laid out the last of the photos, "I've been a CSI a good fifteen years, right Warrick?"

"Longer," Warrick nodded in concurrence.

"And since I've been a CSI, I've learned one thing. People always leave something behind. No matter how careful they are, no matter how much they try to clean up, they always leave something behind."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. And a crime scene this messy," Warrick looked to the photos.

"A crime scene this messy," Nick nodded, "leaves a lot of room for error. Take this, photo," he pointed to the photo of the hand-held gun. "It looks like the guy committed suicide; the guy just blew his brains out."

"Yeah, you're right."

"What do you think, Brass?" Nick turned to the detective.

"Looks like suicide to me," he nodded with a twinkle in his eye.

"That's what I thought, but then I noticed something. You see, when someone fires a gun, there's powder left behind, gunshot residue left on their hands, right?"

"So, Nick, did you find gunshot residue on this guy's hands?" Brass asked, passing his gaze from the CSI to the suspect.

"Nope. I sure didn't."

"You know that raises a lot of questions," Warrick shook his head, "'cause no gunshot residue on his hands means he wasn't holding the gun when he was shot."

"Now that makes me think someone else shot him," Brass raised a brow.

"See, that's what I was thinking," Nick nodded. "But that alone isn't enough to make that conclusion, so I took a closer look at the gun."

"Did you track the serial number?" Warrick asked.

"Well you see that's where things got a little tricky. See, Bobby, that's our ballistics guy?" he turned to the woman, "Bobby told me the serial was in scripted in the chamber barrel. So, reading it was near impossible."

"You didn't get a read?" Brass asked.

"I said near impossible," Nick smirked. "Oh, we got the number and you'll never guess who popped up in the firearms database," he turned back to the suspect. "I bet Mrs. Hampton here could tell us."

"Do you own a gun, Mrs. Hampton?" Brass questioned. "Oh, sorry you're not talking until that lawyer of yours gets here, I forgot," he raised his hands defensively. "I wonder where he is," he shook his head as he passed a glance to the closed door of the interview room.

"Well you see, the gun was registered to a Cathy Warner," Nick told the detective. "So, I had Warrick look into it."

"Yeah, turns out Warner was a maiden name," Warrick added. "Cathy Warner is now…Cathy Hampton."

"And that's you," the detective turned back to the suspect, "You see? You really don't need to talk."

"You killed Ted Goggle," Nick glared at the woman. "You used your gun, planted it at the scene to make it look like a suicide."

"That's a great story," the woman said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Oh, it's not a story," Warrick leaned forward now. "We have you on tape, too. Parking garage surveillance picked you up. You were pretty good at avoiding the cameras on the first seven levels. You kinda got sloppy on the eighth. We traced the license plate on your minivan, too. But here's what I don't get; why him? Why a nobody like Ted Goggle?"

"He wasn't a nobody, though, was he?" Nick directed the question to the suspect. "Ted Goggle was supplying you a family, wasn't he? He was the one giving you foster children. We found the papers."

"You see, this all started with the murder of a family here in Vegas. You might know them," Brass pulled up a chair. "Frank and Diane Harris were killed in their home two nights ago, along with their two teenagers. But, you knew that already didn't you?"

"Why'd you pay Ted Goggle, Mrs. Hampton?" Nick asked.

"You see, we were able to figure out that Ted Goggle was the one who killed the Harris family," Brass informed. "He left quite a bit behind, too."

"When we searched his home, we found a check you had written to him," Nick continued. "A hundred and fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money."

"And from the looks of your home, you're not really pullin' down that kind of cash," the detective smirked. "What were you paying him for, killing the Harris's?"

"Mrs. Hampton, we know about your missing daughter," Warrick added calmly as he opened the manila file in front of him. "Were you hoping by killing the Harris's you'd get Emily?"

"You see, we know about your investigation into the Harris's. You thought Emily Harris was your missing daughter? Was Ted Goggle supposed to deliver Emily after the deed was done?" Brass asked with a glare in his eye.

"But things went differently," Nick shook his head, his voice low. "Things didn't go as planned, did they? What? Was Emily too smart for the man?"

"So when Goggle comes back empty handed, you decide to get even," Warrick smirked. "You arranged a meeting in the parking garage at the Sphere."

"We tracked your phone records too," Brass nodded.

"You wanted your money back, thought maybe you could work things out," Warrick shrugged.

"But he wouldn't have anything to do with it, would he?" Nick broke in. "And in all honesty, you really didn't go there to work things out, now did you?"

"Why else carrythe gun to the meeting?" Brass shrugged.

"I talked with the lawyer over at Chandler and Kao who handled the case," Warrick picked up. "DNA tests were run on all the Harris children, background checks were done on both adoptions. Everything panned out. Emily Harris was not your child."

"You couldn't accept that, though, could you?" Brass interjected.

"You see, when you decide to take things into your own hands, rather than letting the police, letting us do our jobs, everyone loses," Nick shook his head. He could feel his emotions threatening to take control, to boil over. "Now, there's a scared little girl lying in a hospital bed. Her family is dead because you thought you could fix things? She's without a family because you…" he trailed off, his eyes becoming slits as his voice became thick with disdain. The thought of what this woman had done was enough to make his stomach turn. "Your daughter, Molly, has been missing six months, right?" he asked looking deep into the woman's eyes. There was a hint of emotion at the sound of her daughter's name, a glint of recognition. The ice cold began to melt away; a mother's pain slowly began to ebb to the surface.

Casting a wary glance toward his partner, Warrick spoke softly, slowly, "Mrs. Hampton, we…we found your daughter. Your husband has already identified her body," he slid the photo of the child's body across the table.

The three men watched as the emotional dam began to crack, a single tear sliding softly down the woman's cheek.

"She…she was a beautiful girl," she whispered as she picked up the photo. "She took piano lessons, played soccer in the fall." Carefully she passed her fingers over the image of the child. "She was happy, never without a smile on her face."

"Mrs. Hampton," Nick spoke softly.

"She didn't come home from school one day. She was seven years old," she shrugged. "When I drove to the school that day…I thought maybe she'd just missed the bus. The principal said he hadn't noticed her, hadn't seen her. Her teacher couldn't tell me anything," she choked back a sob. "Tom and I waited all afternoon, praying she'd walk through the front door. When she didn't…" she trailed off. Her tears were flowing freely now. "What…what happened to her?" she lifted her gaze to meet Warrick's.

"We're still investigating," he carefully took the photo from her grasp.

"But, how…how did she die?"

"She was suffocated," he replied dryly.

"Mrs. Hampton," Nick spoke up again, "can you tell us one thing?"

Slowly, she shifted her gaze to the second CSI. She was no longer the cold, stone wall she had been at the beginning of the interview. No, now she was a broken, grief stricken mother.

"Why'd you do it? Why go through all of this for a child you knew wasn't yours?"

"A mother would do anything for the love of a daughter," she shrugged empathically.

Quietly the criminalists stood, gathered their photos and turned to leave the room. Their questions were getting them nowhere. Though the evidence gave them all the answers they needed, there was still one question looming in the back of Nick's mind.

Reaching the door, he watched as Warrick turned and threw him a questioning look. Turning back to Cathy Hampton he hesitated. His question needed to be asked.

Licking his lips he cleared his throat and asked, "Was it worth it? Your daughter's dead. An innocent family is dead, a child left orphaned. Was it worth it?"

He let his gaze linger on her taking in every breath she took.

"You know what?" he shook his head. "Never mind. I don't even want to know."

"We have no evidence connecting Tom Hampton to any of these murders," Grissom shook his head as he stood in the hallway of PD. He stood with Nick, Warrick and Brass watching as Cathy Hampton was being led away in handcuffs.

"Hey guys," Sara turned the corner from CSI, "We just got a match to the blood found on Cathy Hampton's clothing."

"Ted Goggle?" Bass asked grimly.

The female nodded silently her eyes trailing down the hall toward their retreating suspect. "And, DNA confirms she's the one who wore the gloves found in the shrubs at Goggle's. So what happened in there? Did she confess?"

"Not exactly," Warrick shook his head as he took the lead in the parade back to the lab.

"But we've got her, right?" she asked.

"The blood evidence is the nail in the coffin," Brass nodded sardonically.

"So, what about your missing persons case?" Nick addressed Warrick as they passed the crux of the crime lab separating from the rest of the team.

"Well, the girl's been identified. Vartann is following up on that. As far as evidence is concerned, there's not much. DNA was inconclusive, the samples were too small to process," he shrugged heading to the break room. "My job is pretty much done, I guess. I mean, the body was dumped on the road, I pulled a few stray fibers from her clothing…" he trailed off as he poured a cup of coffee.

"What kind of fibers?"

"Red, tri-lobal."

"Probably from the car used to make the dump," Nick nodded pulling a bottle of water from the fridge.

"Other than that, there's nothing really to work with. The ground under the body was clean, nothing probative. Kind of makes follow up hard," he shook his head leaning against the counter. "Besides, sounds like the father really doesn't want to push it any further," he looked to his friend. The man looked worn, emotionally and physically. "You alright?"

"Yeah," Nick sighed in response.

"You nearly lost it in there with the suspect. The case getting to you that bad?"

Nick took in another deep breath, held it, and released it slowly. Silently he crossed the room, retreating to the sofa where he slumped down with a heavy thud. He placed the still unopened bottle of water on the cushion beside him.

"It's not really the case," he shook his head.

"Is it the girl?" Warrick asked exhuming a puff of air as he fell into the adjacent chair.

"Damn it, Rick. You didn't see her in the hospital like that, in that hospital bed," he leaned his head against the back of the couch.

"No, I didn't."

"I don't know," the Texan sighed. "There's just…"

"Something special?"

"Yeah," he nodded with a sigh. "There's… something special."

The two sat silently for several minutes, taking in the past three days. The case had been a nightmare, the evidence leading them in circles. Still, they'd managed to make sense of it all. They'd managed to track down and make sense of the seemingly incomprehensible clues. And now it was all over. The case was solved. The evidence was logged away.

"I was tested to be a bone marrow donor," Nick broke the silence.

"What? When?"

"A couple days ago," he shrugged. His eyes were closed as his head rested on the back of the sofa. "I wasn't a match."

"Man…I'm sorry, bro," Warrick let out a long breath.

"Don't be," he looked to his partner. "It was never about me."

"So, have they found a donor yet?"

"They were getting closer. But, I don't know," Nick stood picking up his water.

"Hey look," Warrick hesitated as he followed his friend and stepped into the hallway, "Tina's working first today. Shift's almost up, you wanna go grab some breakfast?"

"Did I hear something about breakfast?" Greg smiled as he joined the two on his way back from DNA.

There was a sudden tension in the taller CSI's shoulders. It wasn't much, but it was enough to bring Nick to attention and throw a quick glance between the two men.

"Hey Greggo," Nick smiled softly as he took the lead toward Grissom's office. "Yeah, breakfast sounds great," he nodded.

"I'm game, too," Greg smiled.

"Yeah, picture that," Warrick smirked, the tension easing slightly as he slapped the younger man on the shoulder. "Never known you to pass on food."

"I mean, you are buying right? That was a bonafide offer, right?" he laughed ducking the punches thrown his way.

"Hey Greg, since when has Warrick ever foot the bill for you?" Nick shook his head.

"It's true, man," Warrick shook his head. "Shoot, though with all this overtime we've clocked in?"

"Yeah, I heard Ecklie's up Grissom's ass about it too," Nick grimaced. "I got the brunt of that blow last night."

"Ecklie, the friendly neighborhood pain in the ass," Warrick shook his head, as the three entered Grissom's office.

"What are you guys still doing here?" the supervisor looked up from his computer.

"DNA just came back on all the blood samples collected from Goggle's house," Greg spoke first.

"And?"

"Let's just say, if the guy wasn't already dead he would be in about 20 to life."

"So, we know who killed the Harris's," Nick leaned against the filing cabinet to his right taking a long draw from his water.

"And we know who killed our killer," Warrick nodded as he took a seat opposite the entomologist.

"Hey, what ever happened with the missing person's case?" Greg asked.

"Well, the girl's been identified as Molly Hampton."

"The daughter of Tom and Cathy Hampton?" Greg asked. The three senior CSIs nodded in concurrence. "So where does that leave the case?"

"Evidence is minimal. I lifted a few fibers from the girl's clothing, most likely from the car used to dump the body," Warrick picked back up. "Other than a bruise pattern on her back, I've got nothing."

"Well, Tom Hampton has signed for the release of the body. For all intents and purposes, our job is done," Grissom shrugged.

"Still, I hate leaving the case open like that," Warrick stood from his chair turning to leave the office. "Can't solve them all, I guess."

"That's the job," Grissom shrugged leaning back in his chair watching as his guys exited his office.

"Ready to roll?" Nick asked turning to exit the room.

"Hey guys," the supervisor called out stopping them just the other side of the door, "nice work. Get some rest."

"See ya tonight," the three nodded with tired, yet satisfied smiles.

The sun was bright, warm and welcoming as Nick stepped down from his truck, joining Warrick and Greg in the parking lot of their dining destination.

"Roxy's Diner," the Texan shook his head with a satisfied grin on his face. "Best Mexican Omelets in town. Nothing beats eggs, salsa, and warm tortillas."

"Except maybe the heart attack that ensues after," Warrick smirked holding the door open allowing his companions entry.

"Damn dude, is marriage making you soft? You telling me Tina has you whipped that bad? They grow them tough in Texas, remember?" Nick smiled sliding into a booth near the back of the establishment.

"That include arteries of steel?" Greg laughed mockingly as he slid in the booth across the table.

"Nerves of steel, maybe," Warrick shook his head. "Balls of steel, sure. Arteries of steel, doubtful."

"Uh, huh," Nick laughed turning his coffee mug right side up allowing the waitress to freely pour the black brew into it. Reaching for the milk, he prepped his coffee.

"The usual, guys?" the waitress smiled pulling out her order pad and pencil.

"Uh, Nick here wants the fruit plate and a bowl of yogurt with granola," Warrick closed his menu. "Dude's cutting back."

"Cutting back, my ass," Nick shook his head. "If you can magically turn that fruit plate and yogurt into a Mexican Omelet, have at it. Rick, man I'm not Sara."

"Usual then?" the girl raised a brow now as she blew a puff of air upward, fluffing up her pangs.

"Usual," the criminalists nodded in unison.

"Hey guys, check it out," Greg pointed to the TV in the far corner as images of the early morning news flashed across the screen.

Sources inside the Crime Lab have informed us the case regarding the Harris family murders is now closed. Las Vegas Sheriff McKeene addressed the media in an early morning press conference.

"The suspect, Cathy Warner Hampton, has been charged with four counts of conspiracy to murder and one count of first degree murder. The heinous acts planned and put into action against the Harris family will not go unpunished. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families."

The murder trial of Cathy Warner Hampton is set to commence as early as next month.

"So that's it," Nick sighed as he turned his back to the television subsequently taking a quick sip from his coffee.

"It's over," Greg shrugged.

"Guess so," Warrick nodded.

"Yeah guess so," Nick turned his gaze outside. He'd heard it before. He hadn't believed it then, didn't believe it now.

They still didn't get it.

It's never over.